The zen of middle-aged black women

Wes Wallace

Sign seen on Constance St., near Terpsichore
(partly covered by potted plant)

A difficult yet omnipresent aspect of life in the city of New Orleans is the racial divide. In the current climate of “diversity-speak” it is almost indecent to draw attention to another person’s race, except to praise and magnify the diversity of some corporate or academic department. And yet, ethnic divides are a constant fact of everyday life, and the polite need to avoid this fact becomes a stumbling-block to ordinary conversation.

One need not be a David Duke or a Louis Farrakhan to recognize the existence of group characteristics associated with people of different ethnic origins. In fact, pretending not to recognize these evident characteristics is one way in which we allow our direct experience of life to be devalued. The way towards love is not by ignoring difference, but by recognizing it! This means dialogue and sarcasm, not homogeneity and nervousness.

In the spirit of love between the races, I would like to offer the following unserious testimony to “the zen of middle-aged black women.”

Not long ago I walked into a Walmart looking for a road-map of New Orleans. Just inside the door I saw a middle-aged black lady in the uniform of a security guard. She was small, stout and impressive looking. I approached her cautiously and asked with studied politeness: “Excuse me, I’m looking for a road map of New Orleans. Do you know if this store carries such a thing?”

She paused briefly, turned towards the front counter and shouted: “Yall got roadmaps, babeh?”

This very brief but efficacious gesture was the beginning for me of a new understanding of New Orleans. My theory is that the extreme weather in this part of the world strips away many layers of social etiquette (at least among working-class strata of the population), clearing the way for a uniquely pared-down version of American pragmatism, exemplified in the security guard’s reply.

Another aspect of the security guard’s reply is her use of the word “baby”, which is common in New Orleans. For a newcomer, this expression can be by turns hilarious and frightening. A native of the city told me that “baby” is an expression of maternal affection used mostly by women, usually middle-aged women of both races, when talking to younger men or women. He claimed that he himself almost never used the word – except once, he admitted, when he had just gotten out of bed after a night of drinking, and went to the store unshaven and still sleepy, to buy a pack of cigarettes. Without even intending to, he let out the words: “What’s up baby, can I get a pack of Marlboros?”

An alternative word, according to this informant, is “boo”, as in “What’s up, boo?”

But in the time since he told me this, I have witnessed many departures from the rule: young women saying “baby” to older men – I myself have frequently been addressed as “baby” by women my age or younger – but also men saying “baby” to older women, and even men saying “baby” to other men.

Returning to Walgreen’s, I want to add that minutes after the life-changing moment with the security guard lady, I had another, and even more densely exemplary moment of black lady zen.

As I was on my way out of the store, I passed an elderly black woman wearing oversized rectangular sunglasses (the kind that fit around normal prescription glasses). She was standing in the entranceway to the Walmart, between the two sets of automatic doors, and she looked like she had been standing there for quite some time. As I passed between the automatic doors I heard her say, “I got high blood pressure.”

As I focused my attention on the present moment in search of more context, I noticed that another black woman of indiscriminate age was standing opposite her, on the other side of the black rubber mat, and this second woman replied: “Mm-hmm.”

While riding on the bus one day I overheard a fat black lady talking on her cell phone. She emitted the following hybrid of zen and proletarian wisdom: “I ain’t got to feed his funky temper! It’s time for him to get a job!” (She chuckled.) “He say he don’t see himself at Burger King Mac Donald’s, I say five dollars is better than zero!”

Again at Walgreen’s (or was it Walmart?), I had a more diffuse zen experience which developed an undertone of racial hostility, until the situation was fortuitously saved by an unintended black-on-black intervention.

I was waiting in line for the cashier fairly late in the evening, and I noticed that the cashier was a middle-aged black woman wearing a bright green shirt, which had thousands of tiny green threads attached to it, giving it an “electrified” look. Her fingernails, also pale green, were about two and a half inches long. Her hair was cropped close and bleached / dyed to a very metallic gold sheen. I hesitated to compliment her on her “outfit”, and settled for saying, “That is a very impressive shirt you have on.”

She muttered a barely civil mutter of recognition, and proceeded on with ringing up my purchase. As it turned out, my dish soap, Ultra Palmolive with Aromatherapy Lavender scent, was not closed properly, and she had to wipe the bottle clean and refasten the top. This required a deft and professional manipulation of her two-and-a-half-inch fingernails, which were curved like pincers. But I watched her with silent apprehension, because I knew that my own mistake had caused the mishap: I had ‘scent-tested’ the bottle before buying it, and most likely had not closed it properly.

During the silence, the lady behind me in line – another black lady but perhaps a bit paler in skin color – addressed me as “honey”. I was grateful for her attention since it redeemed me from the snub of the cashier lady. And I then had a chance to see that the cashier lady’s coldness was not reserved merely for me, nor indeed for members of my race. Because when the friendly lady’s turn came to deliver her goods to the cashier lady, she said to the cashier: “Why those are real, aren’t they?” (meaning the fingernails). – To which the cashier lady did not make even the slightest sign of a reply.